A single railway network for Europe

KEY POINTS

Increased quality through competition

Directive 2012/34/EU:

• permits greater transparency as regards the conditions of access to the rail market;
• improves the access for operators to rail-related services such as:
  • railway stations
  • freight terminals and
  • maintenance facilities.

Infrastructure managers¹

• When infrastructure is operated by railway companies that have historically had a dominant position on the market, it must:
  • be independent in terms of organisation and decision-making; and
  • have separate accounting systems.
• Subject to appropriate safeguards being in place to ensure the independence of the infrastructure manager as regards essential functions², traffic management and maintenance planning, EU Member States may choose between different organisational models. These models range from full structural separation to vertical integration.
• There are detailed financial transparency rules governing loans, dividends to railway company owners and financial flows into vertically integrated companies. These rules are designed to prevent the distortion of competition, in particular the risk of cross-subsidisation in integrated structures.

Domestic passenger services

• Member States must ensure that all railway companies have equal access to tracks and stations. However, they may limit the right of access to passenger services between a given place of departure and a given destination when one or more public service contracts cover the same route. This also applies when one or more public service contracts cover an alternative route, if exercising this right were to compromise the economic equilibrium of the contract or contracts in question.

Regulatory control

• Directive 2012/34/EU strengthens the independence of national regulatory bodies that oversee the national rail market. These bodies may impose fines in the case of inappropriate conduct and may carry out audits. Regulatory control is strengthened by means of close cooperation between the regulatory bodies and the national authorities responsible for rail safety and licensing.
• Regulatory bodies have the power to monitor:
  • traffic management
  • renewal planning and
  • scheduled and unscheduled maintenance works.

Rail financing

The competent public authorities must prepare longer-term investment strategies to offer more stability to the infrastructure manager (in relation to taking investment decisions and planning works) and more certainty to investors, in order to encourage companies to invest in modernising infrastructure. These strategies should cover a period of at least 5 years and should be renewable.

Adoption of implementing and delegated acts

The European Commission has adopted a series of implementing acts that supplement Directive 2012/34/EU and concern the following.

• The details of the procedure and the criteria to be followed when determining whether the economic equilibrium of a public service contract for rail transport would be compromised by a new rail passenger service regardless of whether it is domestic or international (Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/1795).
• The criteria for applicants for railway infrastructure capacity (Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/10).
• Certain aspects of the procedure of licensing railway companies (Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/171).
• The calculation of direct costs for use of railway infrastructure (Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/909).
• The reporting obligations of the Member States regarding rail market monitoring (Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/1100).
• The procedures and criteria concerning framework agreements for the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity (Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/545).
• Access to service facilities and rail-related services (Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/2177).

In 2017, the Commission adopted Delegated Decision (EU) 2017/2075 replacing Annex VII to Directive 2012/34/EU. This concerns the schedule for the infrastructure capacity allocation process.